Thriving Mindfully

Category: The Art and Science of Learning (Page 2 of 3)

Magic Moringa

It would be safe to say that during the testing times of the pandemic, it was the drumstick that became my saviour.
No, I am not talking about the slender pieces of wood that help me make music on the drums. I am speaking about the drumstick hanging like muted chimes on the Moringa tree in my neighbourhood.

Also known as Saragvo in Gujarati, Muringyakaya in Malayalam, this hardy fruit-bearing tree made sure my family never went to bed with an empty stomach during the lockdown.
As the days of scarcity, and uncertainty reeled on with subsequent lockdown extensions, the majestic Moringa tree in the park assured us of our food security.

The moment the sun beamed its first rays into our locality, my mother would silently make her way to the park with a long stick in her hand. After some hustling, she would be back home with a few drumstick pods and a bunch of moringa leaves.

Come lunch and we’d have a spread of sambar and rice. Without the succulent drumstick soaking in the lightly flavoured stew, the dish would pass off as dal. But its pulpy goodness, and the satisfaction of sucking on the last drip from its fibrous remains made us feel a sense of plenitude in times of utter scarcity.

However, the spice shelf soon ran out of the indispensable ingredient of sambar – tamarind.
But has the creativity of a mother ever failed us?
Each day, we’d get to taste a different kind of tanginess in our ‘sambar’. We tasted the flavour of dried raw mangoes, dehydrated amla, Malabar tamarind, lemon, or even Kokum, as a replacement for the usual tamarind spiced sambar. And each dish would outdo the one served a day earlier.

The drumstick leaves started featuring in plenty in our dishes, sometimes as saag,at times as a poriyal with grated coconut, as a leafy accompaniment in dal, at times just raw as a garnish on a cucumber and pomegranate salad.

It’s safe to say our home was suffused with the aromatic blessings of the Moringa tree.

Since we were consuming so much food from a single tree, we wondered if there were any side effects to it.

After some searching online, my mother said,

‘They say it’s a superfood. Do you know anything about this? What is a superfood?’

I could have looked it up. But after the generous care given to our family for two months at a stretch, could I deem its superfood status merely to some magical combination of micronutrients?

Towards the end of May, the drumstick on the tree began to dry up. Only a few dozen drumstick remained near the canopy. But when my mother’s height failed her to reach the topmost fruit, my father’s resolution helped bridge that slender distance.

We derived as much as we could from the tree, until the day it rained for the first time in the season. With a grateful heart, we let the tree heal and recover with the spells of rain to follow.

From the last few drumstick, my mother managed to grow a few saplings. They’re growing well, one each on either side of the entrance to our home.

I remember how during the summer months, our city would be full of drumsticks hanging from the ubiquitous Moringa trees. But all of that fruit dried up every year, without ever receiving respect through our consumption.

The dried seed pods would fall on the concrete pavements. Not one seed would manage to break the opaque, unyielding shield of modernity and reach a longing layer of soil beneath.

I haven’t been out on the streets lately due to the pandemic.

But I only hope that all other Moringa trees have been utilised as abundant treasures in times of scarcity. I hope all of them look like the resurgent tree in our park, one that’s grateful of having served its cause, of having saved a few lives.

And if there are other seeds that have blossomed outside the houses of our unknown neighbours, the hapless seedlings have finally found a fertile place in our heart.

Two prayers

‘Rain rain go away,

Little Johnny wants to play…’

Little Johnny was singing this rhyme, wishing the rains away.

‘It’s vacation time. Why does it have to rain now?’ he thought.

While little Lola reached her hand out of the window to catch the falling droplets of rain.

She was delighted to feel the heaven-sent shower on her palm.

‘Johnny, it is nice weather. Come let’s sit in the porch and listen to the rain,’ said little Lola.

‘I don’t want to listen to the rain. I wish there was a big Umbrella that could shield the playground from the raindrops,’ said a brooding Johnny seated on his black and white football.

‘But the rain is nice. The plants need it. Animals need it. We need water from the rain too.’

‘It can rain in the night when we are asleep. Why does it have to rain in the day?’

‘So that you can see it, silly! Don’t you like to play in the rain?’ asked Lola.

‘I am a big boy now. I am eight years old you know. I like sports. Not dancing in the rain!’

‘Too bad for you big boy. I am still a little girl. I love the rain.’

‘Then why do you raise an alarm when you see a millipede walk into the house at night after the rain?’

‘Did you see a millipede?’ asked a terrified Lola.

‘Ha ha ha, foolish girl. If I had one wish, I would pray for the rain to go away right now!’

‘No, Johnny! Let the rain go away slowly. I still want to dance in the drizzle.’

Johnny let out a big laugh.

‘Ha ha ha, I will use my secret powers, and pray for the rain to stop in 10 minutes!’

‘No, No, Johnny!’ Lola pleaded…


Oh almighty sun, let the clouds part…Let me see your shining face….’

Lola, in turn, prayed to the clouds,


‘Dear clouds, don’t go away too soon. Let there be a drizzle as you move to other places.’

The rain began to lessen in intensity. The earth was gravid with fresh water. The seeds in the earth awakened. Soon, a gentle glisten of sunbeam spread on the soft surface of the earth.

Lola jumped out in the puddle outside her house. Her brother Johnny, flung his football into the puddle. He jumped right in and the whole neighbourhood knew the kids were at play.

They walked to the little bridge near their house. The water in the canal was ripple dotted with the falling droplets. A lotus bloom moved languidly with the gentle flow.

‘You see the Sun is out. My wish has come true!’ said Johnny looking at the emergent sun.

There was no answer from Lola.

She was looking eastward, away from the setting sun. She was entranced.

‘Johnny…’ she tugged on his sleeve and pointed to the sky in the east.

Johnny turned around and looked at the sky.

A majestic arch of seven colours shone feebly on the blue sky. A faint assembly of colours sat on top on the arch, just in the reverse order of colours.

It reflected in the freshwater flowing in the canal.

‘What is this Johnny?’

‘Some magic. Did you pray for this Lola?’

‘No, I just asked for a little drizzle.’

‘And, I asked for a little sunshine.’

The brother and sister duo, watched the sky in awe, as the sun sunk in the western sky.

Millipedes dug their way out of the moist earth. Lola never noticed.

There wasn’t any fighting between the siblings anymore.

And both prayers were answered, in nature’s own sweet way.

On the good old Lunchbox

Remember that calamitous moment in school, when the class teacher asked for yesterday’s homework with a cold steel ruler in hand? And you slid your hand ever so slowly inside the school bag, feigning to reach for the unfinished homework. How you imagined the cold slap of metal on your tender hands on a cold winter morning. And somewhere between all of this, your hands touched the stainless steel lunch box inside your bag that nursed your hands with the reassuring warmth of homemade comfort food.

And we felt all was well in the world. We found the largesse to convince ourselves, ‘This too shall pass’ and we dared to imagine beyond the pain, about the feast that awaited us at lunch time.

The lunch box is the closest substitute for the warmth of a mother. It’s the quintessential pacifier for growing kids who need to be weaned off their mother’s constant companionship. The weeping kids at pre-school find some consolation in the taste of the lovingly prepared meal by their darling mothers. The lunch box somehow convinces us that we are still not too far from home.

In school, lunchtime was the much needed pit-stop we needed for a quick refuel, before we headed out to play in the carefully budgeted lunch period. Lunch was a substitute for a visit to our friend’s home. And more often than not, we visited them all in that hurried limited buffet in the class room. And how discerning was our sense of taste! We might have not even seen a friend’s mother, but we could recognise her from a blind tasting test!

Amid the sharing of lunch all throughout school, we also grew up with a conundrum that’s unsolved to this day.
If everyone ate only out of their own tiffin, everyone would be full. But if everyone shared with each other equally, nobody ever felt full enough!

And as we shared our meals, we took our stomach on a gastronomical Bhaarat darshan. Our lunch comprised of two spoons of Upma, Half an Idli, quarter a Paratha, a slurry of curd rice, a handful of Poha, a disfigured cutlet, and assorted snacks that we trusted to be edible. Sometimes we scooped a fistful of Maggi, a dollop of pasta, a morsel of samosa on that odd special day. A random piece of lime pickle, a smattering of ketchup, and an odd dip in the green chutney, all washed down with hurried gulps of water.
The stomach was prepared for resilience right from school days.

But there were also days when we forgot to carry that lunch box, or someone hid it to have fun with us. Who could we blame when all pilferers pleaded victimhood? But the hunters often become the hunted too, and in the end nobody ever learned a lesson!

There is something crucial that we did learn at lunch hour though – the difference between civility and savagery. All we had to do was observe how girls and boys share lunch among themselves.

Boys would remember being injured with their finger cut from a stainless steel dabba grab-fest, juggling a hot paratha, getting their fingers pierced by forks, and all the pushing and shoving involved in the pursuit of one mouthful. On the other hand, girls would sit in a circle and eat with grace, while finding amusement in the public display of desperation from the boys. Girls always wondered why the boys acted this way. And the boys could never fathom why girls seemed to be growing faster when it was the boys who displayed a more ravenous hunger.

The weight of a full dabba has a gravity of its own. On a long journey away from home the dabba binds us to our roots, giving us comfort in each redolent morsel.
The dabba has always accompanied us regardless of our age. The dabba meant that you’re still cared for. That someone at home still called you by an adorable pet name, no matter how old you were. In a busy city like Mumbai, there’s an intricate web of Dabbawallahs who promise to deliver home-cooked food to your office doorstep. That speaks of what we long for through the dabba.

While most of us have experienced the joy of a dabba full of delicious food, only few among us have experienced the unspoken joy of a mother who washes an empty dabba late in the evening.

She knows that despite her proscription, her daughter did share the ghee and nuts laden halwa with her friends. She’s happy still, knowing that her daughter had the heart to share a delicacy with friends.

Until the dawn of the millennium, tiffin boxes were made of stainless steel, the most iconic of them being the three-floored skyscraper of a dabba, a familiar cousin of the indestructible Hero cycles. We have come a long way from that era. Moulded plastic lunch boxes have replaced the heavyweight champion. In fact, lunch boxes have become modern and stylish. Kids carry Tupperware as lunch boxes, something that was unthinkable in the late 90s. There are insulation lined lunch boxes that keep the food warm until lunch time. I remember the only way to achieve that back in the day was with the aluminium foil, something that only classier kids could afford. Looking back though, I’m glad none of our friends could afford that, else in the grab-snatch game at lunch hour, we’d all have accidentally ingested foil for food at some point.

However, most mischievous kids ensured that they had their lunch warm by finishing it when it was still warm, just after the first period.
Who needs foil, they’d say!
Their marginal moustache almost always bore signs of ingestion, in stark contrast of their staunch denial. Need one explain the genesis of the old Hindi saying – chor ki dadhi me tinka?

Just as the design of the box is changing, so are its contents. Toasted bread, cheese sandwiches, reheated pizzas, biscuits, and convenience foods are increasingly featuring in the lunch boxes of the school going generation today.
The advertising industry has been convincing us into using factory-made substitutes of what we believed to be indispensable, healthy meals. And given the pace of life today, one can empathise with the overworked mother who rationalises the temptation of sending a peanut butter jam sandwich for lunch.

Not only this, the rules in the school are changing too. There are schools that decree students to not share their lunch. It’s every man to himself here. Some schools have a kitchen and cafeteria, which comes as a relief for working parents. All kids eat the same meal. There’s no avenue to share. As we dish out these convenient measures we end up promoting a mono-culture that’s individualistic and unsavoury.

What will happen to the sisterhood found through sharing food?

We are what we eat.
In my school days, my friends and I ate almost exactly the same meal (give or take a morsel) as we shared food uncompromisingly at every lunch hour. Perhaps that speaks for why we still feel oneness with those who we shared our school lunch box with.

But with the culture of being kept from sharing food with friends, or having to eat the same meal in the cafeteria (without having to share), one wonders how it will affect children in the future.

Where is this headed?
We can only wait and watch. But don’t be surprised when kids aren’t as eager to share as they once used to be. They’re the least to be blamed for this change.

However things shape up, we can be glad to be a generation that still savours the good old charm of slinging a lunchbox to work.
And if we still carry a lunch box to office, we can only feel grateful.


Forbidden Love

I felt the tender touch of her hands on mine. She was scared, but I could sense the excitement in her quivering fingers. It was the first time we had held hands in public. And that too, with her parents standing right next to us. But we were standing in the planetarium, and the lights were dim. The shadows were our cover. Gradually everything was enveloped by a darkness as deep as interstellar space. A beam shot out of the projector and the story of the universe began. The roof of the planetarium became the theatre of creation.

‘It all began with the singularity…’

I felt a big bang in my heart as our fingers flirted. The gulf of intense longing was finally bridged. The darkness in the theatre helped us submit to pleasure that though innocent was forbidden. She was the only girl I ever thought about that way. I had loved her ever since I saw her for the first time. She was my best friend, my neighbour, my school bench partner. She was my everything.

I could feel her racing pulse. Our hormones fired in harmony. We clasped each other’s hands tighter, as the loudspeakers aired trivia about nebulae and supernovas. I cared least for the movie screened at the planetarium. I had found my universe in those fleeting moments.

Her shapely nails felt cold to the touch. Her slender fingers were every bit artistic. I dreamt of adorning it with a ring one day. There was a spiritual electricity between us. Our longing was magnetically mutual. We were the twin star systems projected on to the ceiling. Love was our gravity.

Her hand was slightly bigger than mine. And she was taller by a full four inches. I was still waiting for my puberty to hurry things up while she had begun to show signs of womanhood. I compensated for my fledgling manhood with an assertion in my grip that I believed girls loved to submit to.

When they began to project pictures of the moon landing, all I could think of was the nights we had spent being lunatics in our respective balconies, yearning to see each other in school the next day.

Her eyes had a lunar charm. And she’d teasingly call me a loon. I would always think that one day I would have the courage to tell her that I will love her to the moon and back.

On the ceiling, I looked at Armstrong hopping on the moon and felt that he’d fallen in love. He looked at me and felt as if I’d landed on the moon.

It was a mystery how a beautiful thing like her could be the daughter of the most uptight, unpleasant Uncle of the neighbourhood. If I had one wish, it would be for him to disappear forever. Could he float away beyond the solar system like the Voyager probe?
But imagining the grief of my beloved, I had never wished ill on him.

However, I also wondered how her charming mother could fall for such a crude, average looking man. That’s what happens when others arrange for who you must love, so I thought.

I trusted their daughter’s choice to be better than theirs.

Slowly the movie zoomed back to life in our solar system. The frigid extremes of Neptune, the hoola hooping Saturn, the Giant Jupiter, the traffic congestion of the asteroid belt, the red planet Mars and finally, to mother earth. They showed the evolution of life on the blue planet, the oceanic life forms, the first plants, glimpses of the Jurassic age, the meteor strike, ice ages, the age of the Neanderthals, the rise of Homo Sapiens, and finally vignettes of life in our current times.

I wished the movie to last longer. They could show a 3-hour movie and I’d watch it happily standing in the planetarium. I could finally understand what Einstein meant by relativity. Time had flown past like a happy memory. And in that mote of a minute I had found all the meaning in the world. I was the expanding universe.

We held on to each other’s hands. We felt reassured of the mutuality of our longing. Caressing gently, we sunk in the final moment before parting.

But the lights came on too soon.

Right opposite me, I saw my girl struggling to stay afoot. She fainted and fell on the floor once she saw me in the act.

Her flabbergasted father looked at me with the consuming gravity of his twin black hole eyes.

I looked to the left and pleaded innocence.

I was holding the hand of her mother.

Fearless Poetry

In an intimate moment
To a poem
I asked,

Tell me dear, of your solemn sanity
your grace, your poise and equanimity

Why nothing ever makes you dread
What makes you ever so unafraid.

The poem, ever silent,
she sipped on some ink
And revealed gently,
In a lettered link

I am the psalm of life, thus she said,
I’m worth that testing pursuance
I am artless art, born
At the confluence of all influence

And until every word, every influence
Has come together in an effortless stride
I have witnessed my laboured making
Without that senseless shred of pride

And what do I tell you
Of the incubation inside
A young poet’s doubting mind
That imaginary prison
For an imagined work of love
How needlessly does that cage bind!

How testing were all those years
I’ve waited as a footprint on paper
In the suffocating darkness where
the sublime sublimates, into a withering vapor

But in all those moments
Spent without any clout
I’ve never let inside
A flicker of doubt

I’ve believed in myself
To the heights of delusion
When nobody knew of
My spirited resolution

At times when nobody was ready
To pull me out of the shelf,
I have spent those nights quietly
Reading myself to myself
In the voices of all those
who might find some consonance
With faith in all words
That might find some resonance

I have heard voices that
have exalted me to the heavens
I have endured the voices
That have relegated me to hell

In all those pageants
Of my own imagined discovery
I have felt
anguish and agony
beauty and belittlement
curses and caresses
doubt and desparation
exasperation and emancipation…

In those murmuring moments
I have heard
Every possible reaction
Of a possible reader
From myself
In those lonely nights
Spent memorizing myself

And hence
Having been through
The game of long waiting
The test of self-hating
That dry run of delusional self-love
I’ve earned the freedom of a fluttering dove

And so,

When a poem
Finally reaches you
It has
Absolutely
No fear.


The Miracle of Indian Immunity

If a palmist were to read a common man’s hand today, he’d be baffled.

We have rubbed out the lines on our plams through the constant hand washing, and sanitised our future of any trace of filth. As it stands, for a change, it’s the palmist who’s been made to feel insecure and desperate. With no lines to read, and no customer who’ll let their palm into a stranger’s hand, the palmist and his pet parrot are worried about their own future.

We are all worried about the future. The pandemic has changed us in a fundamental way. Remember our sheer nonchalance towards basic hygiene? Well, as hygiene conscious we have become lately, we’ve virtually become -hygienically speaking- indistinguishable from who we used to be.

Let’s take a trip back to those carefree days of our childhood.

We are the kids who’ve danced in the rain every monsoon. Did we ever pay heed to mother’s shouting through the sibilant rainshower, asking us to get back home?
And today, we fret to set foot out in the open during a drizzle. We fear we’ll catch that dreaded cold.
Every sneeze has now become questionable.

We are the kids who used to run behind the the fogger that fumigated the whole neighborhood with plumes of DDT. We’ve lived our dream of being a Bollywood superstar on a smoke infused stage on fumigant clouded streets. Now, some of us have had to sit in quarantined rooms, as health workers sprinkled disinfectant all around the house to contain an outbreak.

We are the ones who used to fall sick once a year from the irresistible indulgence in Golgappas. And we used drink the mint and tamarind infused paani to relieve an ailing stomach. (as if secretly seeking that pleasure in installments) And how soon did we head to the panipuri wale bhaiya again, once we felt fit! The mother’s hand nourished us, and the bhaiya’s hand, just on that odd occasion, made us sick to our stomach.

We assumed the tangy paani to be a herbal sanitiser that effaced every trace of bacteria from those hands that have strummed at every questionable place.

That placebo only failed us once every year, and that, we’d all agree, is not a bad record after all!

Can we even imagine having Golgappas on the street today? Even the bhaiya is back in his village in U.P. anyway!

We are the kids who have trowelled for chunks of clay in sand. Our fingers did squeeze a few funky objections now and then, but we had the heart to condone it in search of a greater pleasure.

Today, we can’t imagine sending out kids out to play the same way.

We are the kids who have, once in life, ran naked on the streets. We are the kids who made a mockery of the five-second rule for determining the edibility of a fallen piece of food. Remember dropping a paratha on the classroom floor and asking your friend, ‘Raam ya Bhoot’?

A swarm of flies has never deterred us from downing a glassful of sugarcane juice. Remember how we used to casually ingest that chemical-laden ice gola sherbet? How, we mocked each other with pop-colored tongues, as the food color dyed the entire alimentary canal in a similar hue.

We are the generation that used to drink tap water from every tap there was in the locality. As they would say in earlier times, we have taste ghaat ghaat ka paani.

I remember once while staying at a hostel in Bangkok, I’d casually gulped a glassful of water from the kitchen tap to the horror of my traveller friends. The water was only suitable for washing needs in their eyes.
They’d predicted I’d be running laps between my bed and the toilet the following morning. Just for the record, I bicycled a 100 kms every day for the next seven days. The only explanation my traveller friends had for this miracle was, ‘Well, he’s Indian!’

What could explain the Indian immunity?

Nonchalance for basic hygiene has kept us in good stead until now. But apart from our habit of enduring questionable hygiene practices on the streets since birth, there could be a positive reason as well.

Think of the Indian Kitchen, where each spice used, each condiment pairing has a logical culinary significance. The simplest of examples being the simplest of dishes, Aaloo Jeera. Not only is it a brilliant pairing, the Jeera (cumin) relieves us from the flatulence inducing Aaloo (potatoes).
Ginger ignites the digestive fire, lemon adds a dash of immunity boosters, and turmeric with its anti-bacterial properties finds a place in almost every Indian curry. We’ve never stepped out of the house for seasonal illnesses. The spice shelf is our medicine cabinet.

Remember that painful needle prick in we had in childhood? That dreaded booster vaccine. The moment when the first existential inquiry entered you head –

‘ Why would someone willingly inflict pain?’

I wonder if the vaccine was named ‘booster’ because it only boosted the congenital immunity conferred to us by the virtue of our Indianness.
(Apart from the legitimate medical reasons of course!)

Being a nation founded on faith, it doesn’t come as a surprise that faith healing and quackery still flourishes in the country. What else could explain that Himalayan Jadi Booti waalah’s tent, the white bearded Hakim, and the peacock feather waving tantriks who even claim to be capable of scaring spirits away.

We’re innocent, optimistic people who take the problem of population density as an opportunity to ensure herd immunity. And given the allowance of casual, affectionate touch in our culture, we spread pathogens with alarming frequency. Our body learns to become a well-prepared army that is a well-stocked with arms and immunitions.

And with the diversity of healing options available in India, the country seems to be in good health.
Apart from the chronic constipation and premature ejaculation of course, something that we blatantly advertise without a trace of cultural self consciousness. Take a train ride to North India, peep outside the window, and the writing on the wall is bright, loud, and clear.

But it’s one thing to be cocksure about our own immunity and another when the government leaves us to the strength of our internal mechanisms to fight deadly diseases.

The tragedy grows in magnitude in proportion to the callousness of the state. How else did we achieve pan-India undernourishment, a worrisome infant mortality, the anemic state of women ?

We boast of the most polluted cities in the world, of drains for rivers and a haze for what should be a clear blue sky.

While we’ve been genetically endowed by good immunity, we might just be pushing our limits here. Even with the confidence in our immunity, the healthy spices in our food, the wide array of schools of medicine, and our long practiced herd immunity, we are, for the first time worried about falling sick.

The pandemic has scared us into a habit of hygiene. That is one positive change that has arisen out of the current state of emergency. Has it woken up the governance system to regain its ailing health?

We are a nation that believes in taqdeer, fate, destiny.
How long could we be locked inside our houses. We will undoubtedly step out of the house soon, wearing our taqdeer on our forehead, ready to face anything on the way.

The mask has been suffocating us. We will still wear one while we head out, hoping to live with the virus lurking around.

And as we walk past that familiar crossroad, we might find two tents of the Himalayan Jadi Booti wallahs instead of one.

Both tents might already have a Himalayan immunity booster advertised on a chalk board.

And I bet, one of them, is run by the enterprising, out of job palmist.

The weight of water

The rousing beat of the temple kettle drum awakened the village out of its afternoon siesta. Shantu, the elderly weatherman of the village could hardly contain his excitement. Standing high on the temple square, he summoned the villagers and announced,

‘Listen up my fellow villagers!
The days of suffering are finally going to end. Count this as the last day of summer, for I predict that we will get the first spell of rain tonight.’

The crowd cheered in celebration. Shantu had seen the most monsoons in the whole village, and people trusted the accuracy of his intuition.

The women were especially happy. It cost them two blisters a day to walk up to the pond in the village nearby to fetch water. Soon, the pond in their own village will have water, saving them time and effort. The kids rejoiced at the idea of showering in the rain to their heart’s content. The seedlings of rice in the earth too waited eagerly for the first spell. Startled birds expressed their surprise for the celebration of belated news. Only if humans had instincts as honed as theirs!

Amid the celebration, Shantu’s granddaughter Gauri walked up the temple stairs hurriedly. Her pet dog Kalu followed her as usual. As she heaved herself up to the top flight, she asked Shantu,

‘Daddu, Daddu, can I go to the pond to fetch water today? I’ll go with the other village women. Please, please…’ she wheedled.

‘You little child. You are 8 years old. You’ll break you delicate neck with a huge potful of water on your head,’ he said patting her head.

‘I will take the smaller pot. I can carry that.
Please let me go.’

‘Did you ask your Amma?’

‘No, she will refuse for sure. But if you grant me permission, she will let me go with everyone else.’

‘Okay, but Kalu must go with you. For your protection, okay?’ Shantu asked lovingly.

‘Yes, there is no way he can stay without me. He will follow me!’

‘Okay, go and come back safely.’

‘Really! I can go?’

‘Yes. And here, take this mango. Enjoy it on the way.’

Gauri pocketed the ripe mango and raced down the temple stairs. She headed straight to her little hut nearby.

She took a small earthen pot and followed the village women headed to the pond for the evening shift of fetching water.
This would mark her first excursion out of the village. She was jubilant.

Kalu sniffed the way forward as Gauri’s little footsteps tried to keep pace with the women who were growing smaller in size every time she tried to spot them.

‘Aye, Kalu, wait for me,’ she hollered as Kalu paced away on the path. He must also know of the impending rain, like the birds.

She met a village lady who was on her way back to the village. Effortlessly balancing two pots of water on her head, she walked gracefully through the sun-baked road.

On spotting little Gauri near the pond, she asked,

‘Aye, Gauri, what are you doing here?’

‘I’ve come to fetch water with Kalu,’ she said with an eye out for her beloved pet.

‘Go and play in the village little girl. You are too small to make this shift.’

‘ I want to help Amma in the household now.’

‘Does she know you’re here?’

‘Maybe, I told Daddu…He knows.’

‘Okay, go quickly. The pond is right beyond that bend you see behind the Banyan tree.’

‘Yes, yes… ‘ she said and rushed to keep pace with Kalu.

‘Kalu, wait for me….’

She reached the pond to find a few village women filling up their pots. One of them helped her fill her little pot as Kalu slurped away from a puddle nearby.

One of the ladies said,
‘Don’t carry the pot on your head. It is heavy. Carry it on your hip…Like this’ she gestured.

With a little help from the women, she balanced the pot on her hip and started her journey back to the village.

She measured the distance back to her village with her tiny steps…

‘Ek…Do…Teen…Chaar…’

She ran out of numbers within a minute. On the way, she started to feel a bit hungry.
She tried reaching the Mango her Daddu had given her from the pocket of her skirt while balancing the pot on her hip.

But just as soon as she managed to pull out the mango, she lost grip on the pot and it came crashing down at her feet.

The pot was shattered. All the water in Gauri’s eyes poured out.

‘What will Amma think of me for breaking this pot?’ she wondered amid snuffles.

She felt a heaviness on her head, as if she was carrying a hundred pots.

She sat right by the broken pot, with Kalu licking her face of tears.

‘Do you want to have Mango, Kalu?’

Kalu never refused food.

The best friends shared the fragrant mango while coming to terms with the loss.

The mango helped her relax. Meanwhile, the weather had begun to change, just as her Daddu had predicted.

She stared at the wet patch of earth where the water from the pot had soaked in.

‘What will Amma say?’ she wondered.

Back at the village, Shantu had begun to get worried about Gauri. Most women had made their way back from the trip.

Shantu was as afraid as little Gauri now.

‘What will Amma say?’ he wondered.

With his walking stick in his hand, Shantu started walking briskly towards the pond.

The gathering clouds had painted the path all around in a gloomy light. For the first time in years, Shantu found himself running. He raced towards the pond in search of Gauri.

From a distance, he could hear Kalu howling back at the low rumble in the sky. He felt a bit relieved. Within moments, he saw the emerald of his eye and heaved a sigh of relief.

‘Gauri…Chalo.. Let’s go home!’

‘Daddu..!’ she cried out.

Shantu saw the broken pot and understood the whole story.

Gauri had mud all over her hands and Kalu had mango pulp stains on his face.

Shantu wiped Gauri’s tears. She held his hands and began to walk towards the village.
Kalu led the way, barking at the sky.

‘Gauri, don’t worry about Amma scolding you, okay?’

‘Hmmm…’ she whimpered.

‘Did you enjoy the Mango?’

She nodded.

‘Why did it take you so long to head back home?’

‘ I was digging a small pit Daddu…right where the water had soaked into the earth. Kalu helped me too.’

‘Accha? Why so?’

‘I buried the mango seed there.’

Her Daddu slowed down his pace a bit.
He turned to look into her eyes.

‘How could I let the water go to waste, Daddu?’

Her eyes were pure as love. Shantu had never felt more proud of his little granddaughter.

He hoisted her up and sat her on his shoulder. That was her favourite ride. Slowly, they headed towards their village.

Soon, it began to drizzle. Gauri smiled. Kalu howled in joy.

‘Daddu, the Mango seed will grow, right?’

Thunder roared in the sky. It was a resounding answer from heaven.

And every little raindrop said,

‘Yes, it will.’


What a butterfly says

I’ve lived up to witness the charming story
Sitting on a bloom of morning glory
The world, they say, slows down its pace
To watch me with a smile, on their face


When I prance around among fragrant things
With the bright symmetry of powder wings,
The traces of pollen in my flight
Bring one and all a supreme delight


Half my life was spent in a cellar
As the ravenous reeling caterpillar
Camouflaged in weeds in isolation
Unaware I’d be worth a celebration


But it isn’t just praise I’ve pandered to
My wings are often slandered too
When the ocean churns with climatic defect
They blame it on me as the butterfly effect


Do tornadoes turn, from the flap of my wings?
I’m too small to know of all these things
But in quiet moments of contemplation
I wonder if I can stir such a revolution


To you, I say, my patient friend
Life is but an enchanting blend
Of duality of oblivion and discovery
Of flying high and chewing mulberry


As children of creation, there are traits we share
Of longing to thrive in the hours to spare
Should you embrace the world with a loving might
You’ll know the beauty of a wingless flight


So let each little act, each tiny motion
Be an act of the deepest devotion
And you’ll taste dear life’s potent potion
And your awakening will usher
A revolution.

The fakir with the flute


It was another bad day at work.
After all these years, I couldn’t understand whether it was the work that was bad, or was it I who was bad at work. Nevertheless, the pay was good, and that had kept me going.

My mind was a scramble since morning in my cubicle and I couldn’t wait for that hallowed half-hour of repose – lunch-time.

After a hurried lunch, I walked up to the chai shop across the street for the sake of maintaining at least one habit unfailingly.

It was a cloudy day and the usual clamour of the street was a bit subdued. As I sat under the Neem tree, rationing miserly sips of hot chai, a faint, evocative melody fell upon my ear.

Happy to have heard some music on the street, I looked around to find its source. Soon, I saw an elderly flute-seller walk up the street with a playful air.

He wore a black turban, a faded yellow kurta and flowing black pyjamas. A stick that leaned on his left shoulder was festooned with a bunch of flutes of different sizes. His traditional leather footwear curled back in at the front, much like his sinuous moustache.

With an easy, graceful gait, he approached the chai-shop. He played a familiar filmy tune that most of the generation on the street had grown up listening to. We measured our age with the breadth of the smile that the prized piece of nostalgia brought forth on us.

He slowed down his advance near the chai-shop and with that timeless melody, he slowed down the pace of the street.

Once he finished playing the tune, the hum of the traffic resumed, as a poignant, practical applause.

He gave himself the reward of a content smile.

Having subconsciously judged his petty life at first glance, I felt perplexed by the quiet complacency in his demeanour. Or should I say, a bit envious.

I waved at him and asked,

‘Aye, bansuri-wallah, chai?’

He nodded as if he saw the invitation coming.

As I offered him a cup of chai, I asked,

‘What’s your name?’

He gently swayed his head, like the topmost branch of a young tree, as if in no hurry whatsoever.

After a sip of chai, with a nod of approval, he said…

‘Kanha…My name is Kanha…’

‘Kanha, tell me, why is it that you keep playing this old filmy tune? Is that the only song you know?’ I asked with a hint of disparagement.

‘I can only play what people are ready to hear, Babuji.’

I felt I heard a part of me in his answer. How I had learned to sell what people were willing to buy, thinking that was the only way.

But what separated him from me? I couldn’t remember even a fleeting instant from my life when I was as content as this flute-selling fakir.

‘Why don’t you play something new, something original for me? If you do so, I might buy a flute,’ I said.

He smiled.

‘I have been waiting for a pair of ears that pine to hear a new message through music.
Do you think you are ready?’ he asked in his throaty voice.

‘Yes, I am,’ I said on the behalf of the street.

They say that the value of any thing is in the way it alters your perception of time and space. Whoever has been in love, has lived this truth first hand.

As he began to play, perhaps it was love that he weaved in those ennobled breaths.

The whole street stood entranced. All involuntary work suddenly lost its relevance. Hawkers, pedestrians, spent cows, orphans on the street; felt magnetically drawn to the caress of that tune. The wind flowed with a gentler hiss and the sun peeped ever so little to shine a spotlight where it was due. Just as lost as the street was in the music, so was Kanha, the seraphic source of those mellifluous moments.

The thousands of questions people had in their mind were answered, all the pain in their hearts was soothed, and everyone, for that hallowed span of time, learned to smile again without longing for a lasting reason.

As he held the final note on his bansuri, the clock began to slowly tick again.

He opened his opal eyes and invited me to lose all my guards. I looked into his eyes, those fabled tunnels with a blinding light at the other end.

I submitted to a hypnotic spell, and let him read the maze of my mind.

He blinked twice, and I began to sense my surroundings again.

‘Did you enjoy the music?’ he asked humbly.

‘Yes…Yes…It was… the truth…’

‘To answer the question on your mind, Babuji…
That music…
That’s the value of my breath.’

He had read my mind like a book. And I was glad he could read the script that I’d begun to forget.

He reached his hand to one of the other flutes in his collection and pulled out one with a pink thread at its end.

He handed me the flute and lovingly said,

‘Go find the value of your breath.’

I took the flute in my hand and looked at it with a hope that I’d thought I had given up on long ago.

Slowly, I looked up. Kanha was already walking away with his easy, nonchalant stride.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask him,
How much I owed him.

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